


Breaking The Rules

by Burning_Omen



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Bi Peter Parker, Ex hero Peter parker, F/M, M/M, Mafia AU, Not Canon Compliant, male reader - Freeform, my first fic on here, older Peter Parker, post Endgame, reader is a mob boss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26476690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Omen/pseuds/Burning_Omen
Summary: After giving up hero work in 2025 Peter Parker had to find a new line of work. Now, after working with the mob 4 years he gets recognized. Not that he was actively seeking it out, it sorta just happened. Now he has to make a decision, does he want to climb the rankings and work with his (surprisingly handsome) boss or does he want to stick to being an unknown associate and stay at the bottom...
Relationships: Peter Parker/Male Reader, Peter Parker/Mary Jane(past)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	1. Meeting The Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peter meets his boss..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn’t planned. It was supposed to originally just be just 500-1,000 word thing but now it’s almost 4,000 words long and I honestly don’t know where it’s going...

Not a day in his life did Peter think he’d actually miss hero work. He didn’t really care for saving people anymore. No, he gave up on that dream. Instead, he decided to do low level, but high paying, mob work. While it did go against his morals, he was poor and needed money. And you can’t make money from being a vigilante. 

Despite the eternal moral conflict this caused him, he still continued doing it. What was ‘it’? Well, It was mostly money laundering, debt collection and maybe, on an extremely bad day, a little bit of extreme bodily harm.

While the things he did, did haunt his dreams and cause night terrors. Which caused Mary-Jane to break up with him. An unfortunate event which throws him even deeper into his work. 

His excessive workforce had made him a valuable associate. His superhuman abilities always made it easy from jobs to get done much faster than normal. 

You only noticed him after a rather small spike in money. It was unexpected, seeing as your last deal was made over a month ago. So a sudden spike, even a small one was confusing. 

After looking through a few files, a few being about 100, you found a very consistent name. Peter Parker. He’d been mentioned to you before but never in great detail. And now he was bringing in piles of money. It may not have been an extremely large amount but money was money. And for someone that was on the lowest level that you could be, he worked hard. 

You wanted to know more about him, not for any real or dire cause, you just wanted something to do in between deals. And he seemed to be the perfect thing for you to cast your interest on. 

Sending out Richard, your bodyguard, and two other associates that you hadn’t bothered to learn the name of was, what you thought, would be your best bet at bringing him in. But when only Richard and one of the associates return, telling you that they'd gotten their asses kicked and that Jimmy, the other associate had dropped dead in an alley on their way but that was proved to be untrue.

The other associate and, unfortunately, Richard seem to have magically showed up in a dumpster with their tongues cut out a few hours later. Can’t have either of them telling anyone about your new found interest in Peter. It’d make other low level associates think they’d have any kind of chance.

So, after a week of getting(now dead) people to stalk Peter and report back to you, you decided that now was the time to confront your latest fascination. His fighting skills and apparent superhuman abilities wouldn’t be a problem seeing as you were a mutant yourself. But that wasn’t common knowledge, not even in your closest circle of “friends”

You watched him from your black, completely unmarked car. It was rare that you drove but you rather not have someone else with you. 

He walked down the street in a sort of timid fashion. Checking each corner before turning it, speeding up when having to cross dark alleys. Soon he reached a large, dingy apartment complex. Quickly he climbed up the fire escape stairway and into a window on the seventh floor.

You parked your car in the extremely dark alley next to the apartment and made your way to the front entrance. There was a keypad that unlocked the door but the passcode was relatively easy to figure out seeing as 4, 5 and 0 were the only numbers that had no paint. You guessed it on your second try.

As soon as you entered you Blined to the elevator, where an older woman stood, trying to hold all of her groceries together but struggling with the bags. 

Now, you may be a money laundering, murderous gambler but you weren’t an asshole.

You walked over to the woman, who was just barely holding her groceries together.

“Would you like some help?” 

It felt strange. The soft tone in your voice that hadn’t been used in years. You were so used to being mean and rough that showing this sort of basic kindness seemed foreign to you.

The woman turned around and smiled thankfully. “Please.”

You smiled back at her and grabbed the majority of the bags.

“Oh thank you, a nice young man usually helps me but I haven’t been able to find him..” she said, reaching for the elevator button.

“Which floor are you heading to?” You said as you stepped into the elevator behind her.

“The seventh floor, what about you?”

“What a coincidence, I was also heading there.”

She turned to you with a surprised look on her face.

“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before.”

“Just visiting a friend.”

As you said, the elevator dinged and the door slid open.

“My apartment is just down here.”

She led you down a long hallway then to a crappily painted wooden door. 

You helped her bring the groceries inside, she thanked you and just before she closed the door you asked.

“Do you happen to know where Peter Parker is? He’s my friend but his apartment number has completely escaped my mind..”

She brightened up at the mention of Peter.

“Oh Peter, such a sweet man. He lives in 713, right down the hall.”

“Alright, thank you.”

You walked down the hallway, reading every number on the doors.

710

711

712

713

Here he was. Of course you could have just looked up where he lived but that could have been traced. And you decided not to leave any sort of footprints that would have led anyone to him.

You knocked on the wood slowly. Soon, you heard footsteps rushing to the door. A second later it swung open.

Oh, he’s so much more...nice looking when you are this close to him.

It was clear that he didn’t recognize you. Why would he? He’s just a low level associate, hardly even a member of the mob so of course he didn’t know you. But the concern in his face was clear, despite his futile attempts at masking it.

“H-hi..” he stuttered out.

Great going Parker, let the strange man in front of you know how intimidating he was.

“Peter Parker, it's nice to finally meet you.”

Peter looked up at you(yes up, always expect the reader to be tall.), the confusion and fear in his face evident.

“Who are you?” He asked in a shaky voice.

“That’s not important right now, what is important is that you are coming with me.”

The piece finally clicked in his head that you were somehow connected to the three men that had come a few days ago.

He tried to slam the door but it hardly moved and inch when you pushed your hand against it. You could feel how hard he tried, if he didn’t stop he’d break the door.

Once the realization of ‘oh shit he’s strong’ hit he panicked. Scrambling away as fast as he could. Only to trip over himself and nearly hit his head on the coffee table.

He stood up, but before he could get any farther he was pinned against the wall with both hands held above his head. He pushed against your hands but you didn’t budge.

Peter panicked, his strength is what normally got him out of situations like this. But he never expected for this to happen with someone stronger than him.

“Will you calm down, I only want to talk.”

Peter gulped and nodded, attempting and primarily failing to calm himself.

“Listen, your recent work has caught my attention and so has your impressive fighting abilities. Not the ones you showed me tonight, no. It's clear that you're exhausted. What I’m talking about is how you kicked an employee of mine once and he died a few minutes later..”

Without even attempting to process the fact that he’d drop kicked somebody to death, he attempted to whimper out, “I’m sorry-“ but was cut off by you.

“I’m not here to take an apology from you. What I need is for you to come with me.”

The panic in his face became clearer and clearer as he tried to somehow pull himself away from you.

“Stop struggling, it's only going to make this more difficult..”

He shook his head and tried to twist his hands out of yours. He failed but that didn’t stop him from trying to kick you away.

He landed a few good kicks, which really only succeeded in leaving dirty footprints on your pants and pissing you off.

“Will you stop already, this isn’t doing anything..”

“Let me go!” He shouted, still kicking and squirming.

“I’ll let you go if you calm the fuck down!”

He stopped for a moment and stared at you.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Now will you stop. I only wanted to talk, just not in such an exposed area.”

You only wanted to talk. The words did calm Peter down a bit, but the thought that you could be lying kept him on edge.

“Okay…”

Peter stopped fighting against your hands, letting his arms go limp, the only thing still holding him up there was you. He tried to even out his breath as much as he could, staring into your eyes he’d finally relaxed.

“Fucking finally. I’m going to let go now. Promise you’ll behave.”

“I-I promise..”

“Good,” you said, finally letting him go.

You both stood there for a moment, both making sure that the other wouldn’t make any moves.

After a few seconds you sighed. Standing there staring at each other wasn’t going to do much but piss you off even more.

“Alright, let’s go.” 

You turned around and walked out the front door. Peter followed after you, nearly tripping again as he caught up with you.

“So what did you want to talk about?”

“I’ll tell you about it when we get there.”

“‘There’? Where are we going?”

“My office, it isn’t too far from here..”

“O-okay..”

By the time the two of you had gotten to your car Peter had a million questions. Most of them along the lines of ‘who is this and where is he taking me?’

You made Peter sit in the back, you’d rather not have the risk of him jumping out of the car and the child safety locks in the back seat doors prevented that. About 5 minutes into the drive Peter began to realize how similar the drive to your office and the way he walked to ‘work’ were.

“So, um, where is your office?”

“You’ll see...”

There really was no point to keeping it a secret but the look in Peter's face when he realized where he was was worth it.

“Wait, I-“

“-Work here? Yes I know. Now let’s go.”

You got out and opened the door for him to get out too. He still had the most confused and nervous look on his face.

Walking past the giant room where most associates where assigned things to do for the day he saw the people he’d worked with and the people that told him to never go up the flight of stairs that you were currently dragging him up. Up there was different from the rest of the building. It was nicer and more expensive looking. It’s where the higher up people got their ‘assignments’. He was told very specifically and graphically what happens to low level associates who went up there. And now here he was, standing at the top of the stairs as you dragged him farther onto the second floor. 

Then you took him to the third floor, and then the fourth. Peter never heard much about anything above the second floor, just that only four people were allowed on the fifth. Apparently you were one of those four people because the heavily armed guards didn’t bat an eye when you went up with him behind you.

The fifth floor was completely empty but decorated just as the three floors below were.

“Not many people get to see this, so consider yourself lucky.”

Peter, whose mind was running a million miles per second in a confused jumble of ‘what the fuck is going on, didn’t give a ledgeable response. Only a jumble of confused sounds.

You laughed at him, then grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him along.

“Let’s go, my office is on the next floor.”

Now Peter's head was spinning because he’s pretty damn sure that there were only 5 floors in this building. But he stood corrected as they came upon another, shorter flight of stairs.

This floor was different. It was still decorated with expensive looking items but unlike the floors below it looked like the color had been drained out of it. It was filled with slick black and silver.. well, everything. There was hardly any color in the room other than the white curtains that hung up on the window.

Peter didn’t get much time to look around as you pulled him into a large office and pushed him into a chair.

This room had a little more color, along with the black there was red and instead of silver there was gold. It reminded him of his past hero work but he shook it off and stared at you.

You’d noticed he’d been distracted for the majority of the way to your office. Most of his distractedness was accompanied by muttering in babbling where the most ledigable thing he said was “holy shit”.

You walked around the desk near the large window in the back and pulled out the chair behind it. Peter sat on the other side, looking nervous as all hell.

“I’m going to skip the intimidation thing because you're already relatively scared.”

Peter shook his head. “I’m not-“

“Peter, scaring people is what I do for a living. I’m sure that I know when someone’s scared.”

He didn’t say anything after that.

“So,” you grabbed the slim file off of your desk and slid it over to him. “Do you see that slight raise in money?”

Peter stares at the folder for a moment before timidly reaching up and grabbing. When he opened it he saw a piece of paper with dates and cash amount. One was circled in red ink with the words ‘sudden raise but no deal’ written under it. Next to that was a date, ‘September 2, 2029’. That was one of the days that Peter had to work, but having gotten little to no sleep the previous night he just wanted to hurry up and get his job done. He sped through his work but still had to wait tables at the mob casino. So he chugged a shit ton of coffee and got back to work. Throwing out people who clearly weren’t getting them any money and letting in people who were clearly big betters. Which caused a very sudden boost in money. Maybe not a big one in the collective records but it was big enough for him to be forced to take more shifts due to his work ethic. Which was mostly just ‘kick anyone who bet less that 5,000 dollars out’. While most other associates gave them a while to ‘warm up’ he just gave them the boot the moment they went lower than 5,000.

At the bottom of the page it said his name and the date of the small boast.

Looking back up at you he closed the folder and sat it back on the table.

“Is this what you wanted to talk about?”

“Yes, it is. You see, most people at your level tend to do the bare minimum when working, which is fine. Most of them aren’t really doing any important work. But you somehow went above and beyond at one of my smallest casinos and managed to make a raise in money that went onto my charts is just...astounding.”

“I still don’t understa- wait, did you say it was your casino?”

The very sudden and obvious realization that he was talking to his boss. Actually no, his boss was some middle man named Felix, you were basically his bosses, boss. No, you were basically his bosses fucking god.

“Oh..oh no…”

He shrunk down in his seat, pushing the seat back a bit.

“Is something wrong, Peter?” You said, the smirk obvious in your voice.

“...I’m an idiot.” He mumbled to himself.

“I have several documents that say otherwise.”

He straightened up in his seat and tried to steady himself after getting the shock of a lifetime(it wasn’t really that shocking but Peters kind of a dumbass..).

“So what exactly do you want from me?”

“Well,” you stood from the chair and walked around to the front of the desk then leaned on it, placing both of your hands by your side to balance you. “Running small casinos, hell, even owning huge casinos isn’t what I do primarily. That’s just something for my low level people to do while I run more...illegal type games.”

Peter tried his hardest to come up with a way that this included him.

“You see, I’ve been looking for a new bouncer for these games, but you can’t just hire anyone to be a bouncer for those types of games. Some of the most influential people in the world attended these games and they bet a lot more important things than money. But you can’t just throw people like that out when they make a bad bet, not when they're paying someone to kill you if you did. My last guy, Michael, had been with me for 9 years. Since the very beginning of these games. He died a few months back.”

Before Peter could give his condolences you held up your hand, stopping him.

“I don’t need your sympathy, what I do need is your work ethic. When I saw that spike in money from that night I sent out some people to spy on you. It was an invasion of your privacy, I know, but I just had to know which little newbie was bringing in all of that money.”

You leaned down, holding both of Peter’s wrists down to the arm rest(for dramatic effect). Feeling the panic from earlier rise in him again Peter tried to push you away but to no avail.

“In short, I need you to work for me. Well, more than you already do now. There aren’t many people like you who are willing to work for people like me, Peter..”

“Y-you mean like us?”

You only raised an eyebrow at him, a simple way of telling him to continue.

“W-what I mean is that you have to be ridiculously strong to hold me down with hardly any strain. So people like us normally aren’t willing to work for people like you..” 

It was only after he’d said that did he realized that he was going to start rambling soon, so he decided to stop there.

You stared at him for a moment, most people would rather not put themselves in the same category as you. But he’d done it willingly and rather loudly, you might add. You leaned back, letting go of his wrist and crossing your arm.

“I like you Peter. You’re...interesting to say the least..”

Peter’s cheeks flushed red and he smiled nervously.

“I..um, thank you?”

You smirked down at him, watching him fumble with his fingers and tug at the end of his shirt softly.

“So about my offer. I’ll let you sleep on it, you can tell me whether or not you want the job tomorrow.”

Peter nodded with a small smile.

“Thank you..”

“Not a problem, is rather not have you make this decision as tired as you are. Now come on, let me drive you home.”

You took Peter back down 5 flights of stairs and back to the car you’d brought him here in. Letting him sit in the front this time you drove off. 

Half way through the drive Peter dozed off, it may not have been the best thing to do around someone who definitely has more than a few kills under his belt but he was passed exhausted and really needed to rest. The last thing he saw before falling to sleep was the dark road ahead of them.

By the time you made it back to Peter’s apartments police surrounded the place. Dozens of cops all standing guard, waiting for someone to come out.

“Hey!”

You looked to see where the voice came from only to see a cop no to far away from your car.

“There's been a shooting, you need to leave.”

You decided to comply, you’d rather not have the cop come any closer to you than he already was. You were a wanted man after all.

So, you turned around, driving in the opposite direction.

Nearly an hour later you arrived at one of your less impressive houses, but you only needed a place to let Peter sleep for the night.

You tried to wake him but every time he just fell right back to sleep. You groaned as you got out of the car and walked to the passenger side. Slinging the door open you picked up Peter’s sleeping form, he immediately laid his face on your shoulder and wrapped his arms around your neck.

You sighed, “the things I do for my employees..”

You held onto Peter with one arm as you unlocked the door and walked in. You already have the layout of this house memorized so you didn’t need to turn on a light.

You carried him up the stairs and to a guest room, laying him down on the bed then pulling the cover over him. He snuggled more into the bed before settling, snoring softly.

You tried to push away the thoughts of how cute he was. He looked so soft and peaceful like this.

You took a deep breath and shook the thought from your head. “Keep it professional Y/n…” you mumbled to yourself before leaving the room.

You settled down in your own bedroom, hanging your coat and tie up by the door before drifting off to sleep.


	2. A Little Unprofessionalism Is Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning with reader, Peter, a unexpected (and unwanted) guest, and an even less welcome anxiety attack..
> 
> ..fun, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ummm, warning: a little bit of anxiety and a small anxiety attack. OH AND GUNS! I ALMOST FORGOT! Murder threats and mentions too!
> 
> Oh, Peter also forgets his pants at some point, just a little heads up.

Last time: You settled down in your own bedroom, hanging your coat and tie up by the door before drifting off to sleep.

Now:

The next morning you woke up, only to hear Peter loudly exclaim “what the hell!” From the other room.

You groaned then sat up, still hearing Peter panicking in the other room. You made your way to him, only to see him sitting on the bed with the most panicked expression you’ve ever seen on a human person.

“Peter...relax yourself..”

His eyes snapped over to you. “Where am I?!”

“Fucking Christ…” you groaned. You’d woken up with a headache that felt far too similar to a hangover for you liking. “...you’re in my house. Yours was swarming with police and I wouldn’t want them to see me or you. Understand?”

He nodded slowly.

“Good, so you're done yelling then?”

He flushed red then nodded with a small chuckle.

“Sorry…”

Groaning again, you said, “it’s fine, just come down stairs when you're ready, okay?”

“O-okay..”

“Great..” with that you walked out of the room.

You honestly had no idea why you were being so nice to Peter. You’ve never shown this kind of hospitality to anyone before. So all of this was very new to you.

Maybe this had something to do with the sudden thought you had last night.

You walked down the stairs and to the kitchen. The entire bottom floor had been completely illuminated by sunlight making cooking yourself and your guest a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and sausage a lot easier. You were a little surprised that there was food in the house. Then you remembered that you’d been paying your neighbors to bring in groceries every few weeks.

You heard light thumping from upstairs then saw Peter emerge from the stairway...with no pants. You could feel your cheeks heat up at the sight...he knows he’s not wearing pants, right?

From the looks of it the answer was no, he came and sat on one of the stools on the outside of the counter then folded his arms and laid on them.

“Sorry for taking so long…” he said through a yawn.

You cleared your throat a little then said, “it’s fine.” With a small voice crack. “It seems you’ve made yourself at home..”

He laughed softly and said, “I hope you don’t mind. Your house is just very relaxing to me.”

“I don’t mind at all..”

The house was silent other than the sounds of you preparing both yours and Peter’s plate. He looked up at you suspiciously.

“What is it?”

“Just...why are you being so nice to me? Like I understand that you want me to work for you but it seems like it’s…”

“It seems like what, Peter?”

He picked up the fork on the counter and twirled it in his hand.

“I don’t know… To me it looks like you want me to do more than just work for you…” he said, getting quieter and quieter, sinking down farther into his seat as he went on.

Well fuck. You see, you’re not the best with emotional confrontation. Or emotional anything for that matter. You could easily put on a simple “I’m Just A Suave Kind Of Person” act but that just makes you look like a fool because this has gone far beyond just being charming.

“Well...” you cleared your throat, trying to find the right words for the moments. “You see, I’ve just bee-“

You were cut off by the very loud sound of your front door being practically thrown off its hinges by no other than Markus Cane, aka one of the lower level(but not bottom tear) players from your more “private” games. He was very clearly enraged. More than likely about his recent losing streak, an unfortunate occurrence that's bringing him closer to being kicked out of the game permanently. Now he's broken into your house while you have an important guest over, which has just brought him a lot closer to death.

But, instead of letting the growing rage inside you show you spoke to the man in the calmest of tones.

“Markus Cane? What brings y-”

You were, once again, interrupted by him.

“You mother fucker!” He shouted, “You’re the reason my life has gone to shit You and your little games!”

You rolled your eyes at the disheveled man, “Is this about you losing the last few games? Because I can assure you that your...inability to play a proper game has nothing to do with me. I only run fair games, it’s your own fault that you lost.” 

“Bullshit!” He pulled a pistol out of the waistband of his pants and aimed it straight at you...Sort of.

It was obvious he hadn’t slept in days, he had dark circles under his red bloodshot eyes. His hands shook and his body swayed as a clear sleep deprivation. He was delirious.

“You’re always pulling the strings in those games! Always behind the scenes telling the croupiers what to do! You set me up!”

“Trust me, I had no interest in your downfall..”

He looked at you with confusion, “‘Had’?”

“Yes Markus, had. I don’t know if you noticed but you’ve broken into my house, throw ridiculous accusations at me and now you're threatening my life, all of this done in front of my current guest of honor. At the moment I want you dead.” You said, your tone never changing. 

Markus stumbled backward, the weight of what he’d done crashing down on him. He backed himself into a wall, his hands shaking so hard that he dropped the gun. It seemed as though the safety was still on so it collided with the ground without going off.

Peter, who you hadn’t been too focused on at the moment, rushed to grab it before settling back onto the stool, setting it on the table. All done while keeping his eyes on the man, who was now overcome with the realization that he was more than definitely dead.

“L-listen man, I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a joke!” He stuttered.

You walked from around the counter, placing your hand on Peter's shoulder for a moment before moving forward towards the man.

He was frozen, mouth agape watching you.

“Now, I would normally kill a fool like you who decided to interrupt my peaceful morning, but I have a guest and that would be rude. And the clean up would take hours, hours that I don’t want to waste on idiots like you. So i’ll give you ten seconds to get as far away from here as possible..” Your voice shifted, turning to a lower, more threatening tone.

Markus stared at you for a long moment not moving until you said, “You have 5 seconds Markus..”

He was out of your house immediately, slamming the door behind him.

You turned back to Peter, who was staring at the door Markus had run through moments before.

“Peter?” You said, your tone changing from the anger laced one you used earlier to a much softer, calmer voice.

He turned to look at you, his eyes wide and bright as though you hadn’t just threatened to murder someone.

“Yes?”

You sighed, leaning against the counter next to him.

“I think it’s time for us to go.”

He nodded, hopping up from the stool.

“Okay, I’ll go grab my shoes from upstairs.”

“Mhmm, make sure you grab your pants while you're up there..”

He looked at you with confusion clear on his face, “What?”

Without looking back at him (less in a respectful way and more in a ‘I don’t want to start staring’ way) you gesture downward.

He looked down, then blush quickly took over his face. 

“Shit! I’m sorry!” He shouted before running up the stairs quickly. 

You went up a little after he did, heading to your own room. Quickly getting yourself ready for the day ahead of you, grabbing your tie and putting on your shoes as you exited the room.

By the time you were done and heading back down the stairs Peter was already there (with pants this time) staring down at his lap, blush still covering his face.

“Are you ready to leave?”

He nodded, more than likely too embarrassed to speak at the moment.

“Alright, lets go.” You walked over to the door with Peter right behind you, grabbing the keys from the small table next to it. 

The both of you walked out, the sun was beaming down but a cool breeze evened out the temperature.

You unlocked the car doors, watching Peter slide into the passenger side quickly. You got into the driver's seat and started the car. You drove in silence for 20 minutes, every so often Peter would look over at you like he wanted to say something but would always go back to fumbling with his hands in his lap.

You decided to interrupt his anxious cycle, besides you were almost at your place of business and you wouldn’t be able to talk to him until after he was done with whatever work he has to do today or if he was suddenly brave enough to walk all the way up to your office on his own, which you doubted he would.

“Is there something you want to say, Peter?”

He stumbled and tripped over his words nervously, creating an illegible sequence of sounds.

“I can’t understand you, Peter, you need to relax..”

He stopped, taking a long breath before speaking again.

“If I wasn’t there, would you have killed that man?” He asked, barely above a whisper.

He didn’t want to talk about it but he felt like he had to know. Did he really change your decision that much? So much that you went from Yes Murder to No Murder in a matter of seconds.

“Probably. I don’t usually take any kind of disrespect from anyone, ever… But, you were there and I didn’t want to subject you to that, especially this early in the morning.”

There was a long silence after that.

Peter didn’t know how to respond and you had nothing more to say on the subject.

As you drew closer and closer to the large building both of you worked at Peter felt as though he should say something, you offered him a job, taken care of him while he slept and cooked him breakfast so he figured some sort of thanks was necessary. (You also didn’t murder a guy because of him but what ever.)  
By the time he figured out what he wanted to say to you, you’d already arrived at your destination but that didn’t stop him.

“I-I…” He started, but all the things he planned to say died on his tongue when you looked over at him.

His internal monologue turned to one word in that moment. Fuck, fuck, fuck…

He gulped, feeling a knot coil in his chest and in a very sudden moment his mind was on fire. Not a single coherent thought ran through his head and he felt his throat close up. So he did what he always did in moments of anxiety, he left. He opened the car door and ran into the building, not really realizing that you had to go in there too. But at that moment it didn’t matter, he had to get away. He had to get away from you, being in that car with you was throwing him into a weird anxious panic. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know why. But once he was away from you it got better.

You were less confused than Peter was, you’d watched him long enough to know that speaking was a problem for him. Especially in situations where he felt he needed to speak but he still felt rude and interruptive if he did. But then he was flooded with the many thoughts of how it could go wrong or how the other person, the other person being you this time, would feel, which would panic him and cause him to leave as fast as possible.

You understood, he was having a hard time speaking, he panicked, he left.

It was a bit rude of him to leave your door open but you could excuse it just this once.

You got out of your car, locking the doors then pocketing the keys. Slamming your door shut before walking around to the other side and closing the door that Peter had left open.

As you walked inside and up the stairs you could feel multiple eyes watching you. Before you disappeared up the stairs completely you looked down at the many low level idiots below, and then you spotted Peter. His cheeks were a dark pink and his eyes were teary, he stared down at his feet, tapping the left with the right every few seconds. He looked so upset, not quite sad or angry just…upset.

Seeing him like that hurt. It hurt a lot. 

You made him feel that way, not intentionally, no. You would never, Still, he was feeling that way because of you. 

You wanted to help him, to comfort him and tell him that everything was okay but you know that you had piles of work you couldn’t get behind on. They were important and then needed to be done. That had to be done, it wasn’t opsional.

And then you remembered something that made you want to grin like a cat.

This is your business. This was your building. These were your workers.

You were in control of everything that happened here, you chose what was important.

And what was important to you right now was that boy downstairs that was looking like a kicked puppy.

So you walked back down the stairs, cut through the large group of associates that flooded the lowest floor and got to Peter.

You gently grabbed his hand, holding it close to your chest and rubbing his palm slowly with your thumb. He didn’t meet your eyes only staring at your hand clasping his.

“Peter?”

He didn’t respond but you could tell he was listening.

“Would you like to go home?” You asked in a low voice.

He quickly shook his head no.

“Okay, okay...where do you want to go? I’m not letting you stay down here, not with how you are right now.?” 

He looked up at you for a moment before slowly pointing to the ceiling with his free hand. It took you a moment to figure out what he meant.

“My office?”

He nodded and squeezed your hand tightly.

“Alright, lets go..”

In seconds you were pulling the shaking boy behind you up multiple flights of stairs. In the time it took you to get to your office you’d become winded, while Peter on the other hand looked almost completely fine. His chest rising and falling a bit faster than normal but other than that there was no indication that you’d dragged him up a shit ton of stairs.

Once you caught your breath you gently guided Peter to the chair he’d sat in the previous night. You leaned back against the front of your desk, your hands on either side of you, keeping you balanced.

“So… Are you feeling any better?”

He didn’t respond for a long while, and for a moment you thought he wasn’t going to.

“A little...I-” he sighed, closing his eyes for a moment to regain control of his thoughts, “I thought getting out of the car would help but just...being in there with all those people, I-it only made it worse. For a second I felt like I couldn’t breath, it was sudden an-and unexpected.”

You opened your mouth to say something but stopped yourself.

“Honestly I don’t understand why I was suddenly so nerve wrecked back in the car. I’d been fine the entire ride but at the end I just...wasn’t.” He looked up at you quickly. “I’m not always like this, I swear! I just…”

“You’re having a rough morning, I get it. It happens.”

“I-I know, I guess I should have at least tried to handle it a bit more professionally,” he muttered.

You laughed a little, pushing yourself off of the desk and leaning closer to Peter.

“I’ve seen you in your underpants, it doesn’t get more unprofessional than that..”

His face immediately flushed red, stammering he refused to meet your eyes, “Sorry about that…”

“Don’t worry about it, you were tired, it’s an easy mistake to make..”

“Yeah, at home. Not at the house of a man you don’t even know the name of.”

This made you freeze, had you really not told him your name?

You felt you face heat up, visible or not you brought your hand up to your face, shielding yourself from your own embarrassment.

“O-oh crap..” you muttered to yourself.

You cleared your throat, straightening yourself out in a moment.

“You’ll have to forgive me Peter, I hadn’t realized that I never told you..”

He looked up at you with a soft smile and said, “I-It’s fine, honestly. It was a simple mistake.”

“Well then, let me fix my mistake. I’m Y/n, it’s a pleasure to meet you..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so damn long, I didn’t like the direction that the story began going in(more specifically, I wasn’t loving the car scene) but I couldn’t figure out another way for the story to go so now you have a little angsty scene.
> 
> Also me projecting my speaking anxiety into Peter...


End file.
